Gay friendly dubai
How can a sense of belonging be forged in a setting where one’s existence is forbidden? That is the question that LSE’s Dr Centner and his co-author Harvard’s Manoel Pereira Neto explore in their groundbreaking research into Dubai’s expatriate gay men’s nightlife.
But it was not an easy topic to research. Dr Centner explains: “It's an illegal, or criminalised, identity and establish of behaviours and practices, so in a very general sense, it's a taboo. And taboo subjects are very often under-researched, sometimes because people own a hard time gaining access, gaining that certainty , but also because, even if people gain that access, there could be significant repercussions for themselves as researchers, or for the people who are the research participants.
“As two queer researchers, we were able to enter the worlds of relatively privileged Western gay expatriates. Secrecy is often the norm, but the field was familiar to us, through previous visits and investigate projects.”
These were indeed ‘parties’ ...[but] not bars identified as gay. Not a single venue’s webpage uses the word ‘gay’ or related euphemisms, nor undertake they hint at targeting
We recently saw that Dubai is due to hold a conference on Diverse rights and to say we were shocked would be an understatement.
We haven’t yet travelled to Dubai as a gay couple, partly because we are apprehensive to…
To examine further we linked with Liam, a gay guy who lived in Dubai for most of his life to learn more about the reality of being gay in Dubai and discover out what suggestions he had for gay travellers thinking about going.
We always believe it’s significant to give people a voice and to share stories of genuinely living in a state as an Gay person.
Read our interview with Liam below to learn more about gay animation and gay journey in Dubai:
Gay Existence in Dubai & Advice for Lgbtq+ Travel
Meet Liam
Sion: Hi Liam, please provide some background on yourself and your time living in Dubai to earn us started.
Liam: Hi, my name is Liam and I was born in 1993 in the UK however in the early 90’s my family started working in the Middle East. In 1999 they decided to move to Dubai and include been there ever since.
I lived in Dubai from age 5 to 18 when I moved to Leeds for University and since then normally stop by Dubai 2-3 times a year.
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